1. Field
The present invention relates to control of an image forming system which processes images by collaborative operation of an image processing device and an image processing controller.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, the demand for realizing power saving of devices, including an image forming apparatus, is increasing. For meeting this demand, there has been proposed a technology which shifts the power condition of an image forming apparatus to a power saving condition when the image forming apparatus is not operated for a certain period or in other situations (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-2500). According to this image forming apparatus, the power condition of the image forming apparatus shifts to the power saving condition after an elapse of a certain period from the end of a printing process performed by a printer unit and a scanner process performed by a scanner unit, or after an elapse of a certain period from the end of communication with an external device.
There is a type of this image forming apparatus which connects with an image processing controller capable of performing image processing in cooperation with the image forming apparatus. This image processing controller also shifts to the power saving condition when no printing data is processed for a certain period, or when no other information processing device on a network accesses the image processing controller.
However, the following problems arise from this conventional system. The image forming apparatus connects with a network with the image processing controller interposed between the image forming apparatus and the network. According to this structure, transmission of information from the image forming apparatus to the outside under the power saving condition of the image processing controller is allowed only after the image processing controller is restored from the power saving condition. In this case, the image processing controller needs to be restored from the power saving condition for every transmission to the outside even when immediate transmission is not required. Therefore, improvement is still needed for this type of image forming apparatus in view of power saving and durability of devices.